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If you are like me, you are a huge fan of kombucha and all of its amazing healthy properties. But did you know that you can make your booch with the alcohol level of a good double IPA, and still retain those healthy vibes?

If you live in the southern California area, you are probably already familiar with Boochcraft. They make an amazing product. They have a few different varieties, but they all clock in at 7.0% alcohol.

In addition to purchasing a SCOBY and a metric ton of pure cane sugar and black tea bags, I bought a 6.5-gallon brewing bucket with a spigot at the bottom (Trust me, that bottom spigot will come in handy later…):

I also bought a 6-gallon clear plastic carboy for the second ferment.

If you’ve never made your own kombucha before, it goes like this:

You obtain a SCOBY. That’s the funny-looking squishy thing at the top. It’s concentrated yeast and it’s what will give turns tea into kombucha. (You can obtain these online or get one from a friend who brews their own kombucha. It is also possible to grow one, but that takes a while).

You brew strong black tea with a large amount of sugar in it. For one gallon, you will need 14 cups water, 1 cup sugar, and 8 tea bags. Brew it and let it cool, then add it to the liquid that comes with your SCOBY and place the SCOBY on top (it might sink a little, this is fine).

Let it ferment for 5-7 days.

Congratulations, you have now completed your first fermentation! Now for the second ferment (also known as 2F).

Pour the kombucha into bottles and add fruit juices, or other sugar or flavoring.

Let it ferment for another 3-5 days.

Put it in the fridge and chill it, and it’s ready to drink!

This will make “regular” kombucha, which will have a negligible alcohol content or less than 0.5 percent.

To make your kombucha extra alcoholic, it only takes another step, another ingredient, and a bit more time.

Step one is the same. Obtain a SCOBY and brew your tea, and let it ferment for about a week. The difference comes in the second ferment.

Essentially, I placed my (pretty large) SCOBY in the bucket with about 5 gallons of brewed sweet tea (note: if you use a large bucket like I did, the SCOBY will expand to the size of the bucket!), then for the second ferment, I placed it in a large plastic carboy instead of glass bottles.

Don’t add any juices or extra flavors yet.

To add extra alcohol, you need to add extra yeast and sugar to the existing ferment.

For one gallon of kombucha, you will need one cup of water and one cup of sugar, Bring it to a boil, let it cool, then add between 1/2 -3/4 tsp. of champagne yeast.

After it starts to react (you will see lots of bubbles and/or foam), add it to the carboy filled with the partially-fermented kombucha.

You will also need to let it ferment for a few days (maybe even a week) longer than a standard 2F. I discovered that the best method is to use an airlock cap, and then when the mixture stops bubbling, it’s ready.

Now it’s ready for you to test, flavor and enjoy!

Testing:

There are two different ways to test your home-brew:

a triple-scale hydrometer, but this requires that you take a pre-fermentation reading and a post-fermentation reading to get an accurate percentage of alcohol content; or

a refractometer, which is slightly more expensive but is very easy to use – after calibrating it, you simply put a drop of liquid on a slide and view it through the scope, and it tells you the alcohol content.

A few of us lucky food bloggers got a chance last weekend to visit Brian Malarkey’s newest venture, Herb & Eatery – an extension, really, of his award-winning restaurant Herb & Wood.

Herb & Eatery is the front of the store and the Herb & Wood dining room is in the back.

Herb & Wood has already won a ton of accolades for being the most stylish and sexy new restaurant in town- and now with Herb & Eatery, you can take all of the goodness home with you.

Jars of goodness at Herb & Eatery

Herb & Eatery essentially has all of the goodies that make chefs (and humble food bloggers) swoon. Brian Malarkey gave us a sweet tour of the chef’s shop and restaurant before filling us with food.

Almost everything is made in-house. You like the tapenade or the salsa that was part of your (award-winning) dinner at Herb & Wood? Come next door and you can buy a jar of it to take home.

Want some fresh herbs, fresh-baked croissants, imported cheeses, frozen ice cream cookie sandwiches, or even the designer flatware you used? It’s all for sale next door.

View of the pastries from the second floor

Herb & Wood was the first phase of this project; and this awesome shop is phase two. They have already expanded the upstairs area into a lounge for private gatherings; and the adjacent space into an art gallery and private event room.

Art on display in the private event space next door to Herb & Eatery

In addition to a drool-worthy “chef’s shop,” a host of housemade pastries are available, every one of them made around-the-clock by pastry chef extraordinaire Adrian Mendoza.

And don’t forget the house-made kombucha.

Speaking of croissants, YOU WANT THESE CROISSANTS.

They are made fresh daily (and sell out really fast) with tons of specialty imported butter and they are said to rival the best Parisian café. We enjoyed them plain, stuffed with chocolate, stuffed with meat and cheese, and made into these lovely breakfast sandwiches.

This is the Maple Croissant: filled with maple pork sausage, a fried egg, gruyere cheese, arugula and aioli.

We also got to sample a few of the baked eggs dishes: Brian was very exited about these … they take a loaf (bread) pan and fill it with scrambled eggs and potato, then bake it, slice it, and cover each slice in one of five different topping combinations.

This is the one with mushrooms, Humboldt goat cheese, herbs, kale, and crème fraiche. It was heavenly.

And this is the baked egg with tomato, capers, olives, basil pesto and lemon zest:

We weren’t even close to being finished. Next we got to sample a few of the items from the All Day Menu (breakfast is only served from 8-11 a.m.).

One of my favorites was the poke & avocado salad, with kimchi, cilantro, housemade ponzu and mixed greens:

… but I also loved the smoked curry chicken and cashews salad with kale and cilantro.

We also sampled some of their amazing sandwiches, like the banh mi with chicken sausage, papaya, and chicken liver pate:

I’m sure this won’t come as a surprise given the amazing reputation that Malarkey enjoys in this town, but LITERALLY everything they have is amazingly delicious.

This isn’t one of those places where you might drop in for a breakfast pastry because they have a good baker, but not come for lunch or dinner because other items aren’t as good. Here, everything is good. You can tell that the chefs and employees there take food quality seriously and want you to experience the best. I’ll definitely be back!

For the last several years, San Diego county has been called “The Craft Beer Capital of America” due to its over 100 small breweries and brewpubs. From big guys like Karl Strauss to local favorites like Mission Brewing or Belching Beaver, it’s not hard to find great suds in our fair city. (Learn more about our local breweries and brew pubs here.)

Likewise, kombucha has had a great rise in popularity recently, as more and more people are getting into fermented foods and health foods …. Booch is one of the best (and tastiest) ways to get your probiotics and make your gut happy.

The Boochcraft company combines the best of both worlds: a healthy probiotic with a boozy kick, made locally and sustainably. In just the last few months – they’ve been open for two years but the first bottles didn’t hit the stores until March 2016 – they’ve become one of the area’s fastest-growing breweries.

I met with Adam Hiner, the founder “and stuntman” for Boochcraft, and he told me about how his passion for the stuff has led him to so much success.

Hiner started out at the now-shuttered Local Habit in Hillcrest, where he was in charge of the kombucha brewing. He saw how people would line up to fill their growlers with his kombuchas, and realized he had to take it mainstream. “I saw the demand every day,” he said. “I talked to my partners and we made it happen.”

After sitting down with his friends to discuss business ideas, they decided to make their kombucha with an extra-high alcohol content to make it even more marketable. Once they finalized the best way to make healthy kombucha extra alcoholic, they inked a distribution deal with Stone Brewers, and San Diego culinary history was made.

Homemade kombucha usually has a very low alcohol content – between .5 and 1 percent. If you buy regular kombucha in a grocery store, expect it to be regulated — even though the alcohol content is minimal, any alcohol at all makes it the government’s business and they might ask for ID or stick an extra tax on it. Most grocery stores and health food stores carry a large selection of brands like GT’s, Synergy, KeVita and Celestial Seasonings.

Boochcraft, while it is starting to expand distribution to grocery stores, is sold like beer – the variety of flavors are in the beer section of your local liquor store, fully sold alongside a selection of big bottles of IPA’s and stouts. Unlike GT’s and KeVita, Boochcraft’s alcohol content is 7%.

The “first ferment” – the tanks are covered with cloth to keep out insects and debris, but still allow the fermentation to occur.

If you make kombucha at home, you can usually have something to drink within 2-3 weeks, and you can make it fairly easily with tea, sugar, and a SCOBY – generally there is a “first ferment” with tea and sugar, then a “second ferment” to make the booch extra bubbly. Because not all yeasts can tolerate kombucha and the process of making it, Boochcraft needs a few extra steps to make it extra boozy.

Boochcraft is made very similarly to how you’d make booch at home, except they add champagne yeast to the second ferment and let it ferment about 5-7 days extra. The total process – from purifying their own water to adding the fruit juices after the second ferment – takes about a month. The flavors are added at the very end, just before the kombucha is put into bottles and kegs for distribution. Right now there are four flavors of Boochcraft: ginger/ lime/ rosehips, watermelon/ mint/ chili, grape/ coriander/ anise, grapefruit/ heather/ hibiscus and tangerine/ turmeric/ ginger.

The tangerine flavor is a limited batch, but it will be coming back into production soon and will be back on the shelves in December or January. In the meantime, keep your eyes open for the new apple/ lime/ jasmine flavor, hitting stores later in October 2016.

Boochcraft still continues to grow – they’ve been producing all the booch they can, at full capacity, and this month will be expanding by almost 5 times. Get ready to see new flavors like apple/lime/jasmine, and some variety in alcohol content (as high as 10%!)